


stuck in the middle without you

by BookFangirlMaryJane



Series: TARDIS Advent Calendar Prompts [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Mistletoe, Platonic Kissing, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Spoilers, TARDIS Advent Calendar, he just wants to kiss the Doctor, the Master has no evil plan here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27880609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookFangirlMaryJane/pseuds/BookFangirlMaryJane
Summary: The Doctor steps out of her TARDIS and runs face-first into a force field. It takes her a bit to realize that the mistletoe taped over the door might have something to do with that.Lucky for her, she's not alone.--o--TARDIS Advent Calendar (by Valc0), prompt for today is 'Someone taped mistletoe on top of the TARDIS entrance and nobody knows who'.Warnings: spoilers for series 12.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor & Jack Harkness, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: TARDIS Advent Calendar Prompts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041429
Comments: 14
Kudos: 39





	stuck in the middle without you

**Author's Note:**

> So. I wrote something again!  
> Because Valc0 posted the TARDIS Advent Calendar prompts and I just couldn't resist.  
> I wrote two versions for this. Number 2 is coming soon.
> 
> I also definitely disregarded the 'nobody knows who' bit of the prompt. Oops.
> 
> Spoilers for series 12, but nothing overly explicit.

It’s there when the Doctor arrives to pick up her fam for the weekend.

She doesn’t notice it at first, which causes a slight problem as soon as she steps outside, runs right into a force field and is knocked back. With a yelp, she stumbles away, into another force field. She’s stuck. Stuck in the doorway of her TARDIS, for no reason.

It takes her five minutes to find the mistletoe taped on top of the entrance. Incredulous, she stares up at the little plant. That can’t be it. It just **can’t**.

But isn't there this old Earth tradition of having to stand under a mistletoe until someone comes to kiss you?

Well, the Doctor thinks with a twisted smile, her fam is gonna show up any minute now. They spent the week at home. It’s their new travel timetable, so they don’t lose out on anything in their real lives. She arrived a little early, just to make sure she gets the right time, but she didn’t quite expect to spend them stuck in the doorway. And she’s **really** not looking forward to being kissed by someone.

By the time Graham and Jack arrive, she has tried several times to remove the mistletoe. But it’s stuck up there, just as she is stuck underneath it, and the force field won’t budge, even when she tries to sonic it open.

“Doc!” Graham greets with a wide smile. Jack is grinning at her. Their fingers are intertwined.

“Hey,” the Doctor says, trying to move towards them but forgetting the force field for a moment and running right into it again. “Ow.”

They come to a stop before her, eyes wide and concerned as she rubs her throbbing forehead.

“What was that, Doctor?” Jack asks, eyes trying and failing to see where the force field flashed blue a moment ago but has now faded again.

The Doctor grimaces. “Well, it’s some sort of force field. I’m not sure why it’s here or who put it up, but I think it has something to do with that thing up there.” She points at the mistletoe and watches as the men stare at it in astonished disbelief.

“You’re joking.” With a laugh, the immortal steps closer, letting go of Graham’s hand in the process. Before the Doctor can stop him, he already passes over the threshold and the force field flares blue around the two of them.

Graham tries to step forward, to join them, but his hand comes up against the force field and blocks his entry. He flinches back, staring at the two of them. “Jack, what’d you do that for?! Now you’re trapped, too!” he exclaims.

The three of them stare at the force field. “What… what do we do now?” the Doctor asks. “Because I’ve been stuck in here since I arrived, ten minutes ago, and nothing I did worked.”

With a cheeky grin, Jack points up. “Well, Doctor, there probably is one thing you haven't tried yet. Kissing someone.”

She frowns and scrunches up her nose. Great. “Well. Well, I s’pose. If it’s the only way.” She really isn't looking forward to it. She hates being touched. Hates being kissed. Probably. She hasn’t actually been kissed by any of her human friends yet.

(There was one kiss, but looking back on it, she’s fairly certain that didn’t feel horrible **only** because he isn't actually human.)

Jack grins at her and then gently presses a kiss to her cheek. It burns. It’s not what she expected from him, though.

When he pulls away and sees her surprised face, he shrugs. “You didn’t seem too comfortable with the idea. And hey, look!” The force field around them dissipates.

“Thanks, Jack,” the Doctor says, gently smiling up at him and stepping back into the TARDIS. She’s not hovering in-between the doors any longer if she can help it. “Now, come on in, guys.”

Jack follows her inside but the moment Graham steps onto the doorstep, the force field activates again. “Er, Doc?”

With a sigh the Doctor glares at the force field. “Great. This is gonna make getting in and out **so** much harder.” Jack is already stepping forward with a grin, planting a kiss right on his boyfriend’s lips. The field dissolves again and the two of them come inside.

“So we have to do that every single time we want to leave? That seems a bit inconvenient,” Graham comments, a little dopey smile still on his lips.

The Doctor shrugs. “I’ll try to figure out how to get that thing off but until then I guess we best go in pairs or something…” She’s really not looking forward to that. That kiss on the cheek by Jack felt awful. She really doesn’t want to be kissed again, cheek or mouth or anywhere.

( _ ~~By a human.~~_ )

“What I’d like to know,” Jack says with his eyes narrowed at the mistletoe, “is who did that. Because while it’s absolutely something I would do, I didn’t do this, promise.” He turns to the Doctor. “How long has that thing been there, do you know?”

She scrunches up her face. “No idea. I visited a small scrap planet to get a few spare parts for the TARDIS. Repairs and stuff, y’know?” Ever since that sonic mine, she takes those trips on her own, without her fam to get hurt. “When I got back, it wasn’t there yet. Spent a bit of time floating in the vortex, and only when I landed here it was... there.”

Really, there shouldn’t have been a chance for anyone to get that force field up, or that mistletoe. She’s not an idiot. She doesn’t stay in a place for too long and when she’s not on an adventure, the TARDIS is usually in the vortex. No one could **possibly** …

Hang on.

With narrowing eyes, the Doctor pulls out her phone.

“Doctor?”

She holds up a hand, ignoring Jack and Graham staring at her, as she dials and puts the phone to her ear. Waits.

_Beep, beep, beep._

**Crack.**

“Hello, luv. How **nice** of you to call me!” He sounds especially cheery. “You don’t usually do that, so shall I assume you’re… **stuck** somewhere and need me to help you out?”

Oh, he’s such a bastard.

“Actually, no. I’m perfectly alright. You probably didn’t anticipate that, did you?”

There’s a silence.

“You do realize,” she keeps on going, “that I have friends, right? Friends who can easily get me out of situations like this?” With an eyeroll, she glances at the doors. “And really, mistletoe? That’s not very creative, is it? Your plans are usually better.”

“Oh, shut up,” he mutters. A grin is on her face. “Nah, I don’t think so. It’s **really** uncreative of you. Like, even less creative than that one time with…”

“Okay, yes, message received!” he snaps at her. “Are you done gloating now?”

She purses her lips. “Yeah, I s’pose.”

He sighs. “Good. It was getting annoying.”

She snorts. “Yeah, well, now you know how that feels.”

Graham and Jack are still staring at her, completely confused. She gives them both a (hopefully) reassuring smile and focuses back on the phone.

“How did you get the mistletoe off the door? I made sure you didn’t have Apnoida on board and none of your friends should even know what that is.”

She chuckles. “Ohh, Apnoida! I didn’t know how to get that thing off until now, so thank you very much for that.”

When he starts cursing her out, she throws in a cheery: “Bye!” and hangs up.

“So, problem solved. Once Ryan and Yaz arrive, we’ll take a little trip to get some Apnoida and get that little thing off.” At their confused faces, she elaborates: “Apnoida is a plant. Known for its ability to burn through basically any material and short-circuit any force fields. Including, I assume, that pesky little thing up there.”

Graham clears his throat. “Doc, we’re not confused about that. We want to know who you just called. Who did this?”

The Doctor purses her lips and trails a hand over the TARDIS console, flicking a few switches. “Oh, just… some guy.”

It doesn’t sound very convincing, even to her own ears.

“It was the Master, wasn’t it?” Jack asks. He doesn’t sound judging, more resigned. When she opens her mouth to disagree, her voice fails her.

With a little sigh, the Doctor looks away. “Alright, yes, it was him. It’s fine, though. The plan failed. He probably didn’t anticipate that I’d land here next. Would’ve caught me somewhere, stuck between inside and outside, unable to take off. But well, that didn’t happen. It was a rubbish plan, anyway, I really don’t know what he expected from it.”

She smiles at them and hopes that it’s enough of an explanation. Jack rolls his eyes. “Doctor, the two of you are just a pair of oblivious, pining alien idiots, aren’t you?”

What?

“Huh?”

He sighs. “Doctor, the only way you get out of that force field is by kissing.”

She blinks. “Yes? I… know that? What’s your point?”

Graham chuckles. “Doc, the Master and you would’ve had to kiss.”

Oh.

_Ohh._

“Ah.” Well, that explains why he sounded so disappointed. Maybe she should have called him earlier…

No! No, she **shouldn’t** have! She doesn’t **want** him to kiss her. She **doesn’t**. That’s completely… she’s not…

The Doctor purses her lips. “Well.” She coughs. “How about we never talk of this again? Please? And don’t tell the others?”

Jack rolls his eyes again. “We won’t. If you promise not to do anything stupid.” Graham nods along and then adds: “And if he hurts you, cockle, he’s gonna get a very stern talking-to from us.” Jack pats the gun strapped to his thigh (she has tried to convince him to leave it at home several times but he just won’t listen. At least it’s only a stun-gun…).

Floundering, the Doctor opens and closes her mouth a few times. She did **not** expect them to say that. “O-kay?”

They give her two matching smiles, reassuring and comforting.

When the other two arrive, neither of the men says anything when the Doctor spins a story of overenthusiastic elf aliens who sometimes do this sort of thing.

( _And when, later, she sends the Master a message telling him if he wanted a kiss he could’ve just asked, and when he responds with coordinates, well, no one has to know._ )

** The End **

**Author's Note:**

> Yep.  
> I invented Apnoida. It's not a real plant. Obviously. Real plants don't dissolve glue and force fields...
> 
> Version Number Two is coming right after! It's the Thoschei version of this. I had the idea literally seconds after finishing this version, and then I was super bummed that I couldn't put them together because they sort of contradict each other. So I wrote the second version. And I'm posting it!
> 
> (Damn, I thought I was done writing prompt stories and stressing myself out because I want to write stuff but Time Limits and Inspiration and WHAT EVEN IS PLOT. But it's fine. It's fine. I love this. I love it very much.)
> 
> Have a brilliant day/night, everyone!


End file.
